Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in EuropeGrellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
History
Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing their manner of life, family economy, occupations & trades, marriages & education, sickness, death, & burial, religion, language, sciences & arts, &c. &c. &c.; with an historical enquiry concerning their origin & first appearance in Europe
Grellmann, Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb
Romanies
From what country did they come into Germany?—Muratori thinks, from
Italy: but how unfounded this opinion is, appears clearly from their
coming to that country after they had been in Germany. The Bologna
Chronicle ascertains the time when Italy became acquainted with these
people. The horde therein mentioned, which arrived in that city on the
18th of July, 1422, consisted of about a hundred men; whose leader’s, or
(as they called him) duke’s, name, was Andreas. They travelled from
Bologna to Forli, intending to proceed to pay the Pope a visit at Rome.
Muratori founds his judgment on this chronicle, not knowing that Gipseys
are spoken of in the German prints five years earlier.
Still less true is what Majolus asserts, that they came from Spain, and
first entered the German territories in the year 1492, when they were
driven out of Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic. Hungary is certainly the
country whence they came into Germany. Not only the time confirms this
conjecture, as we find them in Hungary in 1417, the very same year in
which they were first observed in Germany, but Aventin expressly mentions
Hungary among the countries from which he supposes them to come.
In this state our examination rests, in regard to whether they came
immediately into Germany, or first appeared stationary in some other
place.
That Poland should be the country which harboured the first Gipseys, and
that they spread thence into Wallachia, Transylvania, and other
countries, is a mere arbitrary surmise. The writer (J. G. Eccard) who
advances this opinion, appeals to Münster’s intelligence, but that does
not contain a syllable in confirmation of it. Others, with the greatest
confidence, maintain that Wallachia and Moldavia, where they also
wandered about in 1417, are the places in which they made their first
appearance in Europe. Cantemir, on the contrary, is very undecided,
saying, “Whence, or at what time, this nation arrived in Moldavia,
neither do they know themselves nor is there any mention made in our
annual publications.” However, the second opinion seems to approach very
near the truth, but does not point out the particular province in which
the Gipseys were first observed;—Of what use would that be? But one
information, compared with other circumstances, is of so much assistance
here, that we may, without hesitation, pronounce Turkey to be the country
whence these eastern guests found their way to us. This is
probable—First, because Aventin expressly makes Turkey their original
place of rendezvous: secondly, as this explains why the south-east parts
of Europe are most crowded with Gipseys, as before stated (vide p. 7).
It happened in Turkey, as in every other place through which they passed,
that many of these wanderers remained behind; now, as all that came to
Europe passed by this route, whether at once or in different divisions,
it was possible, indeed a necessary consequence, that a greater number
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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